New SG - Monarch, Standard Settings, Continents, Large Map

As S.ilver pointed out, the main benefit from the Sankore is to give research points for each state religion building. As we have no state religion (and don't look to have a chance to do so soon.) it's not really an efficient use of hammers.


I'd rather build a settler in Rome to grab Pericles Iron or run an extra scientist (which will give us more GP points and and more research then Sankore) then build a wonder we most likely will never get a boost from.

To be honest, I can't see any reason we would ever pick up a state religion. All it will do is make one of our the allies less happy with us.

On a seprate note... how do you all generally get your Espionage points? I normally pick a city (often my capital) an focus it on generating espionage. (Scotland yard, plus the palace, a couple great spys and the espinoge related buildings pretty much takes care of any espionage needs for the entire game)
However in this case we are using Rome to do scientists, so I don't know if this applies.

Also a second thought....
When do you all start normally thinking about the winning conditions? We now know our enemies, do we want to talk about the type of win we want to do?
 
Lurker Comment/Question: Is it an idea to build Sankore anyway, so as to take it away from the AI? Or isn't that very sensible?
 
Lurker:

Thanks alot for going into detail with this game guys. I am a struggling Monarch player as well, and by seeing your play turns, logs, and in depth analysis from a multitude of players it gives me a better understanding of how to recover the economy after that first rush.

I seem to make similar mistakes and lose my advantage once I leave the second age.

Keep up the great work.... I have subscribed and am looking forward to the completion.

BTW, I would punish the Greeks for being so arrogant with their city builds and the Babylonians for secretly providing resources to be used against you.
 
Well denial of UOS is completely null and void since we have the option of Notre Dame, also hammer amplified next to it... :lol:

As for the war, honestly people open the save please?

Please tell a Liq with what exactly is it possible to take another town.

Our troops are super beat such that I'm shocked half are still alive to be honest. Our best medic units on the field are 2x medic1 pikes which explains why our army is leaving a trail of blood as they move across the fields.

Best use for a gg at this point would have been a super medic to keep the offensive going. Actually not too sure how you DON'T have a general attached medic running around after two wars to be honest.

To defend frankor tho, the Holy Grail of Military Pumps on any map that requires water transportation are 10 exp transports. Why?

base5 move on a transport = suck and unless there's caverals to punk, they cannot gain exp.
flanking1 -> Navigation1 -> Navigation 2 == 10 exp for a non charismatic leader.

7 move transports out of the gate and you never have to have them fight. +1 for circum, +1 for refigeration = a 9 move tansport... sexah.

how to get 10 exp naval units? The easy way...
Dry Dock = 4
Westpoint =4
one embedded gg = 2 (optional with civic or pentagon)

The ugly way
Dry Dock =4
Theo = 2
Pentagon = 2
one embedded gg = 2

Tanks cav gunships and mechs can live with 5-9ish exp as they are built to gain more exp. Gunpowder units can live with only 2 promotions as well as if they are required to defend they will be getting their 3rd promotion soon enough. Marines only want to be built in the red cross town so they can one promote march and strut around like seals.

A few other things as well, how on earth did anyone think it was a great idea to add to our empire this late without Drama? We are taking out towns of a creative civ that is by default +2 culture over us and we don;t even have the basic mid era culture building.... screw courthouses... we need to keep the new towns' tiles.

Speaking of culture, lets play a game!

WTH is going on with had?

generichadwtf.jpg


Spoiler :
generichadwtfannotated.jpg


First off, military out of a commerce city at 5 effing hammers a turn? OMG, how long has this been going on and no one thought to stop it? Least it has an effing barracks. City Specialization means each town sticks to it's specialty, Running military in a cottage town is as silly as running scientists in a military pump.

Second, WTH is going on with those specs. The town doesn;t even own it's BFC and it's running a scientist and a spy? Has anyone opened this town to look at it? The good news is that hammy isn;t even trying as we are only 10% ish down on those western floods. Changing those specs to artists will almost double cultural output and a theatre is cheap enough to suffer 7ish hammers. Oh wait, we don;t have drama do we.....:wallbash:


So yeah, Antium is a mess that's worth a screen itself. Our economy, for all its cottages, is still 90% spec running off an unplanned, opportunistic mids.

Yeah so turns tonight prolly. :lol:

If anyone has a good suggestion on how to take a few more of Pericles' towns without incurring grievous WW, let a Liq know!

Cheers!
-Liq
 
Granted, they're pretty beat up, but we have a ton of seasoned veteran Macemen, Praetorians and Trebuchets in the center of the northern front. Move them west and we can pick up the next two cities -- Hsung is on flat lands so we don't have hilltop longbowmen to contend with there.

I can see your points about U of Sankore and concede it wasn't my most brilliant play of the set. A Supermedic would be nice but some added experience for defensive and force-protection units made more sense to me at the time. Pericles isn't counterattacking heavily so we can huddle up in cities to heal an extra turn.
 
Hadru is in danger as I mentioned already! My last turn set I assigned the artist, but it seems to have grown since then and the specialist haven't been managed. We need to put some culture in there. If we get a great artist, we can settle him. Or we will need to go to war to alleviate the pressure. But Hadru needs to be able to work those cottages.

Please don't forget about this while fighting the war! I hate losing culture battles, especially when juicy flood plain cottages are being lost.
 
Easily distracted while at war.. Ralph gets to accuse liq of :smoke: as well for random assignments tho focus was in the north.

Most disturbing thing I found other than had... was mace of had running about... guh! stop building military in that town people! :lol:

And you weren;t kidding about Pericles having no counter attack frank... no pulse either.

Lining up screen shots now, going to take a while as I'm starving.

Cheers!
-Liq
 
I remember checking on the specialist assignment in Hadru at the start of my turn, but I don't remember if I checked in on the assignment after that.... So the unfocused specialists may have been partially my fault.
 
Can I ask a general question about this game b/c you have two cities capable of running gp farms IIRC. Does the cost per GP go up exponentially for the entire empire, or is it per city???? I assume it's NOT the latter otherwise it would be extremely easy to bulb bulb away.
 
Preturn:
so yeah not happy about what a liq see's
Our economy is so weak I can push the science slider up and down the scale for no real effect on research or cash. With all those cottages running around I wonder how this is possible, then realize places like had and antium are running only the most basic multiplier buildings.

What a mess.

Sigh.

We must have drama so lets see who the hell has it for trade... bug lets me know upon opening the game but I check the leader screen as well.. William and Gandhi. well no way and I am letting william get our business.

Notice we have a monopoly on paper still, which is odd. The only other tech we have to offer Gandhi is optics at 2x the beaker cost of drama. Meh. Ok well not like we have a monopoly on that plus I notice we can get something we REALLY want.......

genericdramatrade.jpg


He takes that steal of a deal of course

genericdrama.jpg

Long Overdue

genericgandhimap.jpg

And wow perfect map. ok south is ice locked for certain and even if it wasn;t, that's a long way to ship hehe. That map seals the cirum bonus for us btw.

Notice our intrepid caveral is far too north for expedient circum but oh well, the damage is done.

ok so all border towns get a theatre, especially in the south as hammy has new ice bound towns down there and ravena hardly has the power to play catchup. It already lost a tundra hill!! so slot an artist as well.

Fire 3 scientists at antium since it needs hammers right now to plunk a forum and university down. Forum first. Sacrificing short term beakers for long term growth.

Rome doesn;t have a university either and it's pulling in 145 beakers a turn... so slot that in at 11 turns then remember since iron was razed need to plop a town there. grr ok sttler in 5 as it's gonna take forever elsewhere.

So keep the war going blind here, going to send a pike up north to see what's hiding in that fog.

[1]1310 AD
So quiet turns as the bleeding troops move into towns to heal.

[2]1315 AD
Greek spy caught and nationalism comes in.
genericnat.jpg

Hmm taj.

Well I look at the tech list and no one has paper yet hehe.
Of the choices available, I go for guilds and banking as we really need grocers and banks.

I slot taj into rome after the settler pops in 3... 21 turns. Only other option would have been cumae which is set on military perma.

Cumae switches to chain xbows to garrison the new border.

a knight pops up near iron and so elephant attacks with 89% odds and loses haha. ok another elephant is on the way.

So get a view of Argos and see it's lightly defended with 3 longbows... Very nice town location with gems and dyes and a long river. Ok that's next target... screw Hsung-Nu btw, all that's gonna happen there is that hammy is going to completely take over that area by our effort.

And we get Nikky the great scientist. Acad in antium would be nice but that town isn;t ready for prime time yet so skip it, embedding into rome will take beakers from 230 to... 245 pre university so there we have it, acad for antium in the future is a good idea.

guilds in 7 now.

So start forming up the offensive, looks like as we have enough nonwoundedish cr 3 things running around, just need some elephants and some suicides and such.

cry over the mace who's name includes hadrium... stop effing building military in that effing town people!!!

[3]1320 AD
Gilly demands some tech from us.. screw off.
I see greece is moving a cat stack south whee. How far will it go!

genericsillycats.jpg


free exp for that pair of new maces

genericlightlydefphars.jpg

So see the other town we want.. it's on a hill but not too worried.
ok offensive almost ready hehe. No rush!

We still have a monopoly on paper... boggle.

[4]1325 AD
Gandhi wants to trade maps... uh huh.

The AP is jewish! nice to have any sort of religion after astrology I guess.

greece spy-nukes the marble next to knossis lol. Need to hook that back up for taj.

That lone knight the first elephant lost to is still on iron at .8 strength... so next elephant gets free exp.

The troops move up!

[5]1330 AD
England wants to trade for paper, yeah right.
Paper Monopoly check.... all clear hehe

So greece runs a few knights around but nothing happens. Thats the total effect of his military there.. entertains the IBT with the odd knight prancing about and doesn;t do jack.

Rome pops it's settler and it's on it's way to marginal town. Have an xbow all set to garrison on goto as well.

Taj with no marble, workers on it with a mace guard.

Knossos comes out of revolt whee. Theatre in 10 while running an artist to prop it's culture up.

Our lil caveral finally making clear progress hehe

[6]1335 AD
paper check... Greece has paper! and willheim! willheim has phil as well so hmm. Well waited this long, a bit longer not gonna kill us.

So the fight for Argos begins.. wrong side of the river for Pericles...

Ack didn;t see the bombard promoted treb so well next turn as I want to soften the defenders up a bit.

genericicelockedsouth.jpg

South is indeed icelocked.

Notice on top of the iron is actually the better city spot for iron town as it has those three topmost grass tiles all to itself once we clear the culture.. why did we raze it hehe?


[7]1340 AD
As our spy works it's way to Athens, scouting his land otw, I notice Greece has no real military around but a ton of workers clearing the jungle.. good deal, let him clear it for us haha.

william doesn;t have education yet but it's gonna be soon so I'll pop lib after guilds.


And so the big fight finally starts.
genericargosfight.jpg

suicide treb first actually has 56% odds and so retreats safely.. took the lead longbow down to 1.5 strength so it indeed won

Suicide treb 2 promotes CR1 and has 57% odds... meets up with a knight actually. took the knight down to 2.5 strength so it too won.. nice day for trebs.

I hold back the bombard treb as he is worth keeping.

So prats first since well, no melee here! odds are now 95% ish.

First longbow is beat down with barely a scratch
Next Knight really trashes the prat but he lives at 1.6 strength hehe.
Next long bow really thrashes 3rd prat as well down to 2.0 strength wow. Well a win is a win.
Medic pike takes out the wounded longbow np but still not 10 exp =/
and an elephant takes out the town... keeping it as this is a nice location..

genericargoscap.jpg

Argos comes with a granary and an aquduct and 7 turns revolt so theatre first and courthouse second.

lets keep going hehe. pharsalos is also a nice town and on this side of the river.

Marble is hooked up again.

[8]1345 AD
ug and I clicked the log to crash. auto save is 1340... same fight all over. forget to exp the medic pike hehe.


ok well shuffling troops around on the way to pharsalos and pop that crap iron town.
genericirontown.jpg

well it's not as crap as rav in the south :lol:

[9]1350 AD
Guilds comes in <missing screen> and well I don;t see us getting more than astronomy from liberalism, as if that's a bad prize hehe, so liberalism in 1, nabbing astronomy.

lil caveral is chugging away. circum soon.

genericathensgarrison.jpg

wow, I don;t think Greece has seriously built a single military unit in response to the war; it's bare bones garrison the entire way.

Well mace stack lands next to phars and well time to die as yes it's on a hill but all it has are 2 longbows of which only one has a promotion, and an xbow and a pike. Not a serious defense.

So much for workers to do, will spawn a few more if a town is free.

[10]1355 AD
Hammy wants to trade music +50 gp for phil... no thanks.

genericlib.jpg

liberalism comes in and I pick the obvious
gnericastron.jpg

we gained quite a lot of commerce from those new trade lines as our gold count just went zing.

Banking in 5 to take advantage

Take down phars's culture but well lead mace has a 27% chance to win so wait for the suicide trebs hehe.

[11]1360 AD
Ghandi goes merc.. yay for no trade.. pulling lots of commerce from overseas trade routes even still though so queuing up markets and grocers where I can.

ok the fight for phar on da hill. Pericles reinforced the town but all that equates into is more exp for our cr maces.
genericpharfight.jpg


8% on the first treb... ow this is gonna suck.. he dies, but does some really nice damage.
So the barrage treb next at better odds... kinda... as it can be replaced. it dies too but it also kicks some ass.

Trebs did an amazing job as lead mace now has 94% odds from 27% before the suicide... actually change cumae's build to a 4 turn treb hehe in their honor.

So the troops move in!
lead mace takes out the lead longbow np, minor injuries.
next generic cr3 mace up and he does even better taking out the xbow.
3rd cr3 mace of cumae and he actually is the 3rd in both name and line up... meh takes that longbow out with half health.
Down to the cr2 maces..
First one takes out a knight barely hehe wow almost dead there but got 3 exp out of the deal to nail his 12th exp point and a cr3.
Maceman 5 of cumae up next slacking with a paltry cr2. He gets knocked around for 2 exp nail his cr3 as well.
Mace without a name is next and he gets clean up at 99% odds and yuck...he stinks the joint up, barely living. Wow, What a waste of a cr2 promotion.
So the lone lead longbow that initial treb really beat down is left and so medic pike aims for medic 2. flawless. Too bad only 9/10 exp.

genericpharcap.jpg

And we win the town. Another nice town with the standard granary and lighthouse preinstalled.

punk that knight and realize it was guarding a worker..... So free worker!

genericcirumdone.jpg

And cirum is in the bag just need to hit next turn.

So leave it there for Ralph to clean up and argue over liq;s decision to build infra at antium rather than leave it operating in the BC years. :lol:

There's a literal TON of worker labour to be done and we have a half score of new towns to decide how to operate. Lot of work for ralph to dictate what needs to be done where. Liq expects a ton of signs!

btw I was chaining a farm line north of the marble to irrigate the corn to the west.

Left the tech trades open for ralph as well as we can sell off paper etc

Can get peace from Greece for sure now tho debatable if you want to reset the culture on anything. The towns to the NE are jungle bound still such that best to let Pericles use his worker army to clear it first hehe. Nice towns once they get unearthed from that tropical nightmare. Greece never tried to defend itself and continues to have nothing to field, really odd.

Gems and I believe dye online in 3 turns for no additional effort other than Argos coming out of revolt.

Can continue to take like uh carib to free up the northern culture of ephesus as west of carib isn;t cultured yet but I'd personally let Greece play karma culture over in Hsung. Hsung is a game we really don;t want to play with hammy until we are about to beat his shiny red nose in.

With Astronomy in, we should get a religion .. or 6.. soon.

There's a hut at the very north of the map above greece one may want to send a ship over to with an explorer.

Total loses for the turn
1 unlucky elephant
2 heroic trebs for whom pharsalos dedicates its theatre to.

Cheers!
-Liq
 

Attachments

PD, it goes up for the entire empire. Although 2 GP farms is not always bad, it can be a waste to use two. But it's not uncommon for a 2nd city to pop out a GP once in a while. It can give you some flexibility by choking back on one city for a while if a particular specialist type is more likely to come from a 2nd city.
 
Good turn set, Liq. Once we do get those economy buildings going, we're going to be a real power house.

Don't worry, Frankcor. Sorry if I sounded upset. I often forget those things as well. It is important, but we'll fix it yet.
 
oh btw seems poor EP lost the tiles it was working so it needs to get redistributed workwise.

meh well if you want that town to live a halfway normal life, pown that carib town north of it. Otherwise let it subsist on it's back row until we take out hammy.

We need soooooo many workers.

Cheers!
-Liq
 
Ok Got it. Will look tonight an dplay if things look clear or psot for discussion and laying on Wednesday alternatively.

Ralph
 
that carib town just popped it's 3rd border and really put the hammer on epwtf... as if that town needed the kick in the arse. Just noticed it after posting so god knows what it's tiles worked are, nothing good.

If you want that town to actually behave as anything but a sandbag, take out carib to the NW and hold it. If not, well ep has some nice tiles in its south eastern quadrant once a worker can come over :p

Husang is in a fight for its life with hammys culture... actually is a nice buffer for us as is haha.

Cheers!
-Liq
 
Wow, It's shocking to see how little fight Pericles is putting up.
This fight may be over quicker then I expected...

Is the plan now to stop and consolidate our gains, or do we press on with the war?
 
we have a Serious lack of workers not only for our old lands but all those new towns as well.

If we take those continental towns NE of Argos we gain a ton more worker fodder in just those jungle tiles when we have more than enough on our hands as is.

Only option I see to be honest is taking carib as it's not a bad town at all and it's culture dove tails with our new holdings really well. Otherwise it's time to consolidate.

What we took from Greece was about the bottom 4th'ish' of his empire and it continues over land and sea far to the north... we are not killing greece anytime soon and certainly not before killing our economy in the process.

Need more workers and a direction each of our towns will take.

Cheers!
-Liq
 
Another argument for keeping Carib is that it gives us a port on the west side of our continent.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have razed the Greek iron city on the east coast but I didn't want to crash our economy. It turns out to have cost us the hammers to grow our own settler.
 
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